The Ottawa 67's kept cool on Saturday as they prepared for an outdoor game against Gatineau on Sunday.

All caught up in the excitement on the eve of the Ottawa 67’s first Outdoor Classic, team captain Travis Barron got into the spirit of the special event with teammates Noel Hoefenmayer, Kody Clark and Sasha Chmelevski by driving over to practice Saturday with all the windows down in Chmelevski’s Jeep.

And, when the other 67’s saw their leaders with the windows open, they played follow the leader, making for a bone-chilling 9 a.m. commute from TD Place along the Queen Elizabeth Driveway and across the Pretoria Bridge on their way to the Minto Complex at the University of Ottawa.

“It’s my favourite type of weather to drive with the windows down,” dead-panned Tye Felhaber, a veteran of many cold mornings as a kid growing up in the Upper Ottawa Valley.

“Coach (André Tourigny) told us to get ready and have some fun with it,” added Barron. “So we got out the balaclavas and the face paint, and put on an extra pair of long johns.

“And we put down all the windows. And then a couple more cars did it, too.

“It’s finally here. Thank God. It seemed like it was taking forever . . and now that it is here, I can’t believe it. Last game before the Christmas break. Where did the season go?”

Sure enough, when the 67’s take to the ice at TD Place on Sunday at 3 p.m. to face the Gatineau Olympiques in the first of a special home-and-home series this season, they will hit the 34-game pole, exactly the midway point of the OHL’s regular season.

After the game, the players will take a few pictures together before dispersing for the holiday season. They’re not due to report back until Dec. 27 to prepare for three games in three days, at Kingston, home to Oshawa and at Peterborough.

After a month of anxiously anticipating the Outdoor Classic, like kids counting down the days to Christmas, the 67’s have spent the past several days watching the Weather Channel as much, or maybe more, than the previous night’s NHL highlights.

And it seemed like every time they’d check, the forecast high for game day got lower, to the point that some stopped looking.

“It’s going to be cold,” Barron said. “Real cold.” But no one really cares about the weather.

The game might just be a once-in-a-lifetime event for every 67 save overage goalie Olivier Tremblay, who played one previously in the Quebec league. He was a backup for that game, and just about froze on the end of the bench at a fairgrounds near Shawinigan.

Just the same, the 19-year-olds like Barron are just as excited as 16-year-old rookie like Graeme Clarke. The enthusiasm among the 67’s is off the charts.

Most every one of the 67’s got their start on an outdoor sheet of ice, most of them in their backyards.

For 19-year-old Tye Felhaber, his start came on a frozen creek near the family farm just outside of Foymount, which just happens to be Ontario’s highest populated point at 500 metres above sea level up in Bonnechere Valley, just west of Eganville.

Felhaber’s dad, Joey, spent hours teaching the budding left-winger how to skate. The lessons were a success, although they were not without a mishap or two along the way.

“I remember just starting to get a feel for it and I thought I was doing pretty when whack, I hit a branch with my face,” Felhaber, laughing, said Saturday. “So that’s how I got my first bloody nose.”

The first real rink-like experiences Felhaber had were in some hotly contested games between all kinds of cousins from both the Felhaber and O’Brien clans, many of whom will be in the stands Sunday.

The Outdoor Classic has him reminiscing about the rink on his neighbour’s farm where the boards were frozen bales of hay or wheeling down the ice on Clear Lake with the wind at his back.

Felhaber is even bringing out a tiny pair of old black mitts for the special occasion.

“It always got real cold back home and up until I was 10, I wore these little black mitts under my gloves,” said the one-time 10th overall pick of the Saginaw Spirit and former Ottawa Valley Titan. “So the mitts are coming out again for the outdoor game.”

Tourigny grew up on outdoor rinks in his hometown of Nicolet, Que.

“I used to stay out there until my feet were just about frozen,” he said. “We know it’s gonna be cold.

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